We're So Back!

The LAD Performance family has stayed the course. Loads of training sessions, expansion conversations, continuing education, travel and more have shored up and refined a lot of our core principles. We have been fortunate to have some really great mentors in this field who have challenged us to expand our horizon and outlook this year. Leveling up is what my high school kids would say. We’re excited to share that we have a new hire! Izzy Garcia is our marketing strategist with a very unique & creative skillset. She has already made a noticeable impact in her first couple of months & we can’t wait to see what time will bring.

 It is very easy to get caught up in the shiny new toy or trendy drill or exercise now a days, but we have kept it very simple this year… probably more simple than ever before. Our 30,000 foot view stays undefeated & we can’t wait to share what that looks like in the weeks ahead. We’re continuing to learn how to blend AI into our company (we’ll talk more about this shortly) . Sifting through the noise and the bs will be paramount as we commit to giving you the best information we possibly can.

We are incredibly proud of our incoming Freshman class of college athletes. Some of these kids we have been working with since they were in Middle School… to see the growth and the manifestation of the work they put in really fires me up. All the conversations about these moments will stay with me forever. This is a large part of the reason I am doing what I am doing. The relationships that we have built with them go far beyond the walls of our gym. They are family as are all our athletes. Our team is not made up of “Strength and Conditioning” coaches who operate in the parameters of a gym. I won’t go on a tangent here, but I actually hate that title. Back to the kids…We are so grateful to be a part of the athletic journey & know that the work is not done yet! We’re crushing this summer to get them ready to make an immediate impact as they head to college.

The major thing I want to share with you all in this post are 5 principles that we’ve been re-visiting this year with the team. We began the year talking through these in early January and now in July are doubling down on the value. We hope these can help you out in some way on your journey.

1. More depth, less breadth

Historically this has been a big struggle, something I have wrestled with a lot. I want to be the best in everything I do, this bleeds into the direction of the company. Welp it doesn’t quite work like that, bud. There are so many parts of this industry that we want to dive into. So many topics that are fascinating that we would love to spend time going deep into. Here’s the reality though… doing this will create average & we aren’t going for average. We want to stand out in a select few disciplines, keep it simple & execute well. There are some amazing experts in fields that fascinate us that we will continue to refer you all too going forward. An example of this would be sports nutrition. Obviously very important, but we have relied on other leaders in the field to help field common questions that we receive.

Does this mean we don’t educate ourselves on sports nutrition? NO, I am not saying that. We actually know quite a bit about this subject, but we don’t know it all! We are focusing on a smaller amount of passions at this time.

2. Find others who are smarter than you

 I’ll be real with you… I have put off partnerships and conversations with people who had more experience or who were smarter than me. I was intimidated. Many reasons contributed to this, but nearly every time I have regretted these decisions. It probably boils down to an ego thing that I constantly battle. Deep in my being I know that if we are going to grow I need to surround myself with very smart individuals who possess skill sets and expertise that I don’t have. Collectively we become stronger & our athletes get better.

Something you may not know about me… I never went to school for exercise science , kinesiology or sports science. My degrees were in finance and accounting. Post college I spent all of my 20’s working in corporate finance at Boeing. All of what I am doing now I was doing on the side, before work, after work & on the weekends hesitant (for a few large reasons) to take it on full time. So as I fully transitioned to this career I felt so far behind despite the fact that I had this side hustle going for a few years prior. I didn’t want to sound dumb or look stupid, but I had to learn. At first it was easy to find these people, I was the sponge soaking up everything I could and then applying it on myself and then further down the road on my athletes.

Fast forward a couple of years… I stopped growing like I had planned. Back in the early days of covid I developed some really key mentors who have had such a profound impact on my philosophies. As I learned and developed I started to become too rigid, less inclusive of other (sometimes conflicting) points of view. There goes that ego again. I isolated myself and indirectly the direction of this company.

A focus has been to get more involved & feel a little, well… dumb? When I was “dumb” I listened more and asked more questions. So here’s to getting back to asking more questions. Stay tuned to what we continue to learn from future certifications, podcasts, seminars immersives.

I know that I can’t do this alone. Having a solid team will raise the bar and bring on more exciting things that we are eagerly anticipating.

3. Walk the walk

So pivotal. I get asked at least a couple times a week to compete against these young, spry athletes.

“Hey coach come toe the line against us!”

 I don’t want to be the person who can’t perform the things they teach. I am not hating on those that can’t, but that is just not me. I fully understand (at least conceptually 😉) that time will catch up with me, but I am working on delaying that as long as humanly possible. I am obsessed with training, learning more about how my body moves more efficiently, developing my athleticism, etc.. I am the weirdo who all the neighbors stare at in the street questioning. Great people though. I want to dunk a basketball when I have a kid, I want to run a 4.5 40 yard dash, I want to play in the city basketball leagues. I train for these things now and I will train for them in the future. I am not doing this for the validation from my athletes, but I do feel they need to see this to validate who they’re relying on.

4. Show up today

There can’t be zeros. I need to find ways to put points on the board, no matter how small it looks. I know that these compound into larger things, it’s not rocket science. This is not promoting the work until your dead culture. This is a momentum play knowing that I will improve and get better if I “grease the wheel”. In turn this will make my products and services better it’s this ever long pursuit. Some days I’m not feeling it & other days I feel great and time’s flying. GOOD. I commit to doing what I can regardless of the magnitude. Small wins day by day will add up to big achievements over time.

You’ll continue to see more of the LAD Performance team around. We’re committed to more education & more involvement in the local community amongst other things. Shorter form, longer form, interviews, etc.. This principle is one I am really thinking about as I start my journey as a dad… showing up for my son. Showing up when I am tired, when I am super busy, when I am “not feeling it”. 

5. Adapt and evolve

AI, future tech & robotics are all playing a bigger part in this industry right now. If you want to receive a 6 week training program to improve your athleticism just head over to your favorite AI tool like ChatGPT and prompt it to create one. What once took hours and days will now take seconds. It will actually give you a pretty decent program, keep asking it questions to refine this program and you can really be on your way. If all we did here @ LAD Performance was create online workout programs for athletes we, very soon, will be out of a job. You see this, it’s happening in all industries. I don’t want to compete with these tools. I will not outsmart those tools. I want to utilize them as resources for growth.

We have integrated these quite a bit this year to help with frameworks, outlines and ideas. It has freed up time to spend on more important tasks. Relying completely on a ChatGPT could ruin the way we interact with our athletes. Why? Well for one it takes the human element away entirely. This is the most important part. Understanding the stressors, the humanity. Everyone is different. There is no one size fits all. Nobody responds to the same movement the same, people feel things differently. This is one of the ways we hold value, through the experienced coach’s eye.

Thinking about our value in this day and age is something I think about all the time.. it’s one of those that keeps me up at night. There is a lot of nuance that you pick up as you gain more experience in this industry, in any industry. Think about wine connoisseurs that can detect nuanced aromas that distinguish one vintage red from another. That connoisseur holds value from experience. The experience of the senses and the feelings. What we can spot in movement with our senses holds a lot of value… our tribe holds a lot of value… In future blog posts this year I will talk a lot about this and ways we as trainers or coaches can navigate this difficult time.

🗣️: If you are looking to take the guesswork out of your training and have athletic goals coming up this year I’d highly recommend my online program, The Foundational Athlete (TFA). This program was built from years of experience keeping concepts like what I have shared today in mind. No matter what sport or how old you are the program holds tremendous value 🤝

RIGHT NOW TFA is being offered with a ONE WEEK FREE TRIAL. If you sign up & aren’t liking what you see just cancel it before the week is over and you won’t be billed. What’s the harm in that? To learn more you can click below! I’d love for you to be a part of the LAD Performance team & hear more about your performance goals this year.